The CTCN responds to financing needs by assisting countries in conducting technology feasibility and cost analyses, identifying potential funding sources, and developing business plans and funding concept notes. The Centre also engages in partnerships with a variety of funding entities, including those within the UNFCCC Financial Mechanism.

For example, the CTCN was selected, together with UNDP, by the Adaptation Fund to jointly implement its Climate Innovation Accelerator Programme (AFCIA). As part of the AFCIA programme, the CTCN will deliver technical assistance to test, evaluate, roll out and scale up innovative adaptation practices, products, and technologies.

The CTCN was also chosen by the GEF to implement its Challenge Program for Adaptation Innovation. The CTCN will assist urban planners in mid-size cities to identify possible financial tools and mechanisms for financing adaptation technologies and building relationships between municipalities, the private sector, financial markets, and infrastructure funds. A project design document is under preparation and will be submitted to the GEF Council for endorsement in early 2021.

The CTCN completed activities under the GEF funded project “Promoting Accelerated Transfer and Scaled-up Deployment of Mitigation Technologies” in December 2020, after five years of implementation. Thirteen technical assistance interventions were financed by this project, including a multi-country technical assistance intervention on the circular economy in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay, which proved instrumental in shaping the Latin America and the Caribbean Circular Economy Coalition, of which the CTCN is a strategic partner.

Since 2017, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the CTCN have partnered under the GCF Readiness and Preparatory Support Programme through which the CTCN provides services and expertise in response to developing countries’ requests using GCF country resources. The CTCN has accessed 5.9 million USD for the implementation of 20 GCF readiness projects between 2019 and 2020, seven of which are completed or near completion. The CTCN contributed to the development of an additional 12 readiness proposals by countries for the GCF in 2020. Pending the full approval of all submissions, the CTCN will access an additional 4.6 million USD for their implementation.

In line with the recommendations of the evaluation report of the Poznan Strategic Programme, the CTCN has engaged with multilateral development banks (MDBs), specifically those hosting Climate Finance Centres. The CTCN regularly exchanges information on the respective project pipelines between the CTCN and the Centres to facilitate scaling up of the technologies. In addition, the CTCN has explored MDB collaboration for joint programming of activities and capacity building programmes. This includes organizing a capacity building programme on accessing climate finance with the African Development Bank, exchange of pipeline of projects with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Islamic Development Bank, and a joint event with the Asian Development Bank on clean technologies in Asia.

In addition to the Financial Mechanism, the CTCN has supported seven countries through the NDC Partnership Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP). Some CAEP funds have been provided to the CTCN for technical assistance implementation, while the CTCN will co-finance, and in some cases fully cover, the remainder of individual technical assistance costs. The Climate Technology Centre continues its efforts to mobilize resources, including pro bono and in-kind contributions, in order to support programme implementation. The value of pro-bono and in-kind support secured for CTCN activities last year was over 1 million USD. This includes contributions received from a monitoring and evaluation expert as a result of USAID pro-bono support.

In order to monitor its overall progress in providing technology support to developing countries, the CTCN completed the update of its new monitoring and evaluation system and internal dashboard. The system will facilitate capturing the impact of the CTCN’s capacity building and technical assistance through aggregated output, outcome, and impact indicators such as anticipated funding leveraged and anticipated GHG emissions reduced. Detailed guidelines for implementing partners and NDEs have been developed, providing an overview of the procedures for monitoring and evaluation of technical assistance, as well as standardized methodologies for reporting on quantitative and qualitative core indicators.

Following the guidance provided by the Technology Framework to ensure effectiveness and efficiency by addressing the transformational changes envisioned in the Paris Agreement, the CTCN sought to better understand how the transformational impacts of its support could be assessed. Through the use of the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT) Transformational Change Methodology, researchers at the UNEP DTU Partnership conducted an analysis of transformative characteristics in ten CTCN technical assistance examples and two capacity building programs.

According to the ICAT methodology, transformational impacts can result from processes and outcomes of policies or actions that drive large-scale and long-term structural changes in society toward climate mitigation and sustainable development goals and targets. The results of this analysis revealed that the transformative outcome characteristics specific to CTCN’s mandate are the sustained nature and scale of climate mitigation, resilience and sustainable development. The analysis further determined that the CTCN addresses process characteristics such as R&D and innovation, awareness, and policy, and that the Centre enhances the abilities of key actors, namely government representatives and private sector, NGO, and civil society organisations, to drive transformational interventions. Finally, the analysis confirmed that the CTCN had achieved outcomes for technology deployment, mitigation, adaptation and sustainable development through its capacity building and technical assistance activities.